There was an old woman and a nurse in a room. The old woman sat in a chair holding a cane. There was a tray in front of her with a plate nearly full. The nurse bent over and wiped her face with a napkin. The nurse believed when old women talked about their lives it’s a sign they’re about to die. Miss Macintosh started doing that, and it was making the nurse anxious.
“How about you eat some of your peas?” coaxed the nurse.
For more than a month that horizontal plane, the cold, hard iron blade of the sea, has scythed around this lonely spite-filled ship, the Meeuwtje, the Seagull. Our only constant: that unwavering edge. If only we would come to it and tumble off into the void.
I am consumed with the vilest thoughts; acidic loathing, a derision that stoops my shoulders. This sinful, wind-blown bastard-mongrel pack with whom I share this stinking pile of creaking timber, rope and sailcloth!
Continue reading “Cold, hard iron blade of the sea by Shane Bolitho”
‘I’ve read your tales of India,’ he said, as he sat in my study at Rottingdean, ‘so I thought you might like to hear my story.’
I’d answered a knock at my front door just as my study clock struck midday, and found the man standing on the doorstep. He had looked cold, and oddly distracted.
‘Can I help you?’ I’d asked.
‘My name is Jabez Carter,’ he’d told me. ‘I’ve come a long way to see you.’
Continue reading “The Visitor’s Tale (a ghost story, after Rudyard Kipling) by Robert V. Stapleton”
”Another one, Mickey.” Mickey raised his eyebrows. “Yea I’m sure. Throw on another one. It needs to support the weight and account for winds, so throw on another one.”
“I’ll never get the speed high enough to take flight.”
“Sure you will. You’ve been practicing?”
“Yes. I’m fast. How are your motors coming along?”
“Don’t worry about them. You just keep focusing on staying on track at that velocity.”
Althea walked out from the cabin, kissed James on the cheek and placed a tray on the table. “How are you boys doing?”
When my father came home from work and said we were going to a concert I was thrilled. It was to take place upstate along the Hudson River in a town called Peekskill. To get out of our stuffy Brooklyn apartment at the end of summer was heaven-sent. I didn’t know dark times were swirling around us.
“You’re going to love the concert David. Paul Robeson is going to sing,” said my father.
“Are you sure Frank? You saw what happened the other night,” said my mother.
“It will be fine. More of us will be there and we can’t let them get away with this can we? After all this is America,” he said.
Spring 1938.
Lars said to Miranda, “Understand this…” and left the table.
A series of explosions shook the six storey building but did not deter Miranda’s study of him; his untidy egress.
Through the narrow living space towards the sash window, she watched him go. Observed him at the window and after a time wondered why he found what was on the other side of the glass – a post-siesta pre-bombardment tableau in the still spring air – more compelling than whatever it was she supposed he intended to spout next.
If indeed there was more.
“May I?”
The man took a step towards the jar.
“You will be careful with it, won’t you?”
“A closer look, that is all. I know it’s worth a small fortune, what, at least…”
“…At least a jolly large amount I shouldn’t imagine and wouldn’t like to say.”
“Well I will say, Madam Panagoulias. Put my cards on the table so to speak.”
“As you wish.” Continue reading “Madam Panagoulias and the Pithos by Adam West”
